Pardus , If you can , put another 3k in the bag and get the same lens in IS , it has a 3 stop image stablilizer , which is pretty good .If not I found my canon 70-300 on the 350d to be a fine combo for the park , if you look in my satara report , those owls and the hyena pic where all with the 70-300 (5 years old)

I think , looking at berts pics , that there is no comparisson between that , and the 170-500 sigma I bought , even my old 70-300 seems better than the sigma .Berts pics have so much colour and clarity !

Yvonne was taking pics of the same ellies and girafes as me in the park (We met up and where searching for cheerah on the s28 in convoy) , i would love to compare her pics with the 100-400 to mine with the 70-300 and sigma 170-500

Last edited by bucky on Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bucky, the clarity is lens quality but the colour is helped with a little bit of photo shopping.
Depending on the colour already created by light in which the picture was taken i ad saturation with 10-15%
The shot of the hill with the marble rock is natural, but the giraffe has a little bit of saturation added to it.

I am very happy with pic quality from my canon 70-300 , and mixed with the 1,6x effect of the 350d makes a very effective lens .

I cant say im overly happy with the sigma 170-500 on it , and anything that was medium/far away has not got sharp results , even in a window clamp with remote release , so no shake .
I dont know if the dust/heat haze causes issues on long shots with a bigger lens .

Id go for the 70-300 with or without is depending on what you can afford , if he has 18k spare get the 100-400 , or else a 400mm canon L lens , although this leaves him with no short range option .
I would without a doubt buy the 70-300IS for 6k before the sigma 170-500 at a little more cost .
I have got the 55-200 usm canon lens also , and this is a little small for most shots .

I have used a 70-300 for years on my old film camera , as I was not able to afford anything bigger , and all previous photos I posted where with this lens scanned from slides or pics .

Its like a bit of lip gloss or eyeshadow But why have a program like photoshop for eg. if you dont use it.

I mainly use four tools

Bit of saturation of needed
Highlight/shadow.
Sharpening (only a little if needed. A out of focus or moving object will never be sharp)
And sometimes i cut away a bit of the edges if a branch or bit of grass annoys me.

Nearly forget. Polish away the ugly dusts which comes when changing lenses on one digital body.